Robert's Childhood Memories Page 4
I liked camping out in the yard. We would use
burlap cotton sheets for a tent, cook fried onion tops, fat meat and green apples. We got
bread from the kitchen. On one camp-out the Supman boys, Leonard and Ira who were Jewish,
were along. We had fat pork, potatoes and apples. After cooking out most of the fat in the
meat, we fried the potatoes and apples. Along with the bread, we had a feast. While
eating, Leonard told Ira not to tell their parents they had eaten the pork. Their younger
brother is now known as "Soupy Sales". When Mr. Supman died they had Papa make
his casket. It was made with black Walnut wood and put together with mortising and wood
pegs. He was wrapped in white linen to be buried. Papa made many caskets in his shop. One
he made for a man before he died and Papa told me he kept dried beans and peas in it under
his bed.
The road to Louisburg was graded and paved
in the middle 1920s with mules pulling wheelers, which was a scoop that picked up dirt and
transported it to the fills. They would set up a corral with a blacksmith tent. The men
were black and they slept in tents. The food was cornbread, peas, beans, and fat meat.
Most of them would go home on the weekend. Two or three of them would stay to look
out after the mules. I don't know how the concrete was mixed but it was poured in short
sections and covered with burlap and kept wet for several days for it to cure properly.
Mama took care of Simon Williams' sister
who was old and confined to a wheel chair and addicted to morphine. She was cured while
living with us and died in our home.
I can remember going with Papa to Wake Forest to
construct a concrete porch for Dr. Templeton and a school on the old Louisburg road. I
remember placing nails and a penny on the train track to get flattened when it was ran
over. We made a swimming hole on a branch below the cemetery where we would swim in the
nude. Once, I picked cotton for enough money to buy a gadget that when filled with air and
fastened under your arms was supposed to support you while you went through the swimming
motions.
Mama kept six boarders when the road
from Franklinton to Creedmore was being constructed. She charged $5.00 per week with three
meals and room furnished for five working days. This was when I was 10 years old and
learned how to start up the dump trucks. I would drive in the yard and on one occasion, I
ran into the shop building knocking a hole in the side. Even if Maynard said "Robert
did it", I don't remember getting a spanking for it. I can remember seeing the hobos
riding the Seaboard freight trains, Gypsies stopping and stealing from the stores and
taking money from people while pretending to tell their fortunes and the police chasing
them out of town.
I remember going to Scout camp when I was 12 years
old. Ormand Moore, who lived next door and worked for Mr. Al Vann in the Sterling Cotton
Mill office, loaned Mama the $12.00 for me to attend. The camp was located on Crabtree
Creek. Even though I could swim I almost drowned when I attempted to help the Talbert
twins, Harold and Howard, out of trouble below the dam at pumpkin center. If it had not
been for the help of two other boys, we all three probably would have drowned. I will
always remember how green the trees were while we were struggling to get to shore.
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